Standing here in my kitchen I 'm in front of my last month of workouts. I hung them right on the cupboard so Natalie knew what the last 3 weeks held. To me this was the most important 21 days out of the last 10 months. I tapered once in May and knew that I could get another good one if I trusted in my years of distance swimming training. You see, tapering is something you can only do 2, maybe 3 times in a year. Like always I also knew what a challenge a 3 week taper would be. This one was going to be hard, and my longest. Let's look closer though, how does one break themselves down for 10 months and expect to fully recover in only 10-14 days? It's just not possible. So that first week wasn't so bad. I kept my run mileage up a little and swam at 90% of normal, the big decrease came on the bike. I dropped volume down from 20 hrs to 16. 25%. During that week I concentrated on increasing calories in stuff I really wanted like a whopper Jr, and some pizza. Fat intake was high but, not so much I couldn't digest it all. My longest ride was 4hrs on Saturday which put me at 82 miles that day. I ended Sunday with my first Overall Win at Carnation Tri. I was able to grab such a lead that I could relax and ease into a finish not overdoing it.
Week 2-
Dropped volume to 10.5 hrs. almost 50%, I decreased my fat intake and added proper servings of complex carbs. I began hydrating already and maintained weight at 163. This week I was in bed around 10p, which is 90 minutes earlier than usual. Falling asleep to Discovery channel every night was fine. Swimming volume stayed the same, run dropped, and my bike dropped. Saturday was my last "longer ride" of only 3 hrs. By this time I was really feeling like crap. Super sluggish and just tired of it all. Everything hurt, every spot of tendinitis was flared.
Week 3-7 days until race day-
I was now having a serving of complex carbs with every meal. I wasn't all that hungry though. I had certain workouts planned but, made a last minute decision to cut a lot out. Instead of the longer tempo I opted for short workouts with a period of "Balls out" intensity with a long recovery. By Thursday I only had 2.5 hours in. I was still feeling really sluggish and my nerves were starting to climb. Monday night I packed all my nutrition and while doing so I noticed my Perpetuem had expired last May. So I got on the phone with Loman who suggested I just call Hammer. Well they indicated that it's fine unless...unless...unless it smelled even a little sour. Well it's smelled sour since the day I got it. Hammer said no way, toss it. So here I am 5 days out and no one in town has Perpetuem except Nate Loman. My man hooked me up with 12 servings of cafe' latte. New to me but oh well. I had to do a little last minute design because of the caffeine but, I was no worse for wear. so what I had is this:
Bike- 900 calorie perpetuem/gel mix
900 calorie Infinit
600 calorie espresso/vanilla gel
240 calorie hammer bar
Special needs- 600 calorie perpetuem/ 400 calorie gel/ hammer bar
Run- 360 calorie cafe' latte
600 calorie espresso/vanilla gel
Special needs- same.
I know that's a lot of calories, I was taking in a count for spoilage and launched bottles. So what do I lose? $10 in fuel and bottles? It's great insurance policy. Back to taper. The pool was closed this week so I swam open waer in Lake Milton in my race gear to identify and chafe issues. I wouldn't leave the trainer with my bike in fear of chip and seal, and my runs never exceeded 4 miles. The week went fast, I was incredibly busy at work which helped keep my mind off the weekend. Everything was ready to go Wed night and Thursday I came home, packed up the car and went to bed. Natalie drove most of the way down, I tried to rest with 3 excited kids in tow. I mean this was their 'tucky 'cation! When we arrived on Friday the place was crawling with athletes and the busy energy was crazy. I went straight to athlete check in and got my pre race medical. 7.5% body fat and 65% water content, 164 lbs fully clothed. Perfect. This is when I hooked up with Patrick and Kostura. Together we went through and got all race essentials complete. Good thing they showed up because I was going to go nuts with nervous energy. That night we went out to dinner with some CTC and SPIN guys at the Spaghetti Warehouse. I ate a salad and some garlic toast. No need to pound the calories now, I needed easily digestible foods. Saturday I got my warmup swim in at 9am. There was killer current flowing down the Ohio river. I swam about 1/2 mile upstream and it took me almost 20 minutes. 7 minute return. Good news for race day. All afternoon I held up in our hotel room, stayed off my feet and chilled the room to 60. I sat there on the couch eating some dried fruit and watching Dirty Jobs. One last check of the race gear and I got my bike checked. At 9 pm I realized my race socks were still on the table. Not that big of deal though, I wasn't worried. There was something much bigger looming over me. After a horrible friday night sleep I turned in around 10 pm. Fell right to sleep and woke up at 4am to my ringtone alarm. Holy Shit, this is it. Immediately my nerves redlined. Only after one, yes just one cup of coffee was I able to mentally calm myself down. I went through my pre race, got dressed, ate 2 English muffins, lightly toasted with low fat PB and blackberry jelly, topped with a drizzle of honey and a little bit of dried cranberry. Don't mess with that combo. Time to walk to the race start.
The line for the swim start was a rumored mile long. I planned on swimming close to 50 minutes so I wasn't having it. About 100 people back I ducked into line. The dude standing there was a little mad, I just put it into perspective..."It's either over you or in front of you". We waited for a bit then we were corralled into position for a time trial start. I only drank 16 oz. of water this morning, no need to over hydrate. We sang the national anthem then there was a large boom from the pro start. I watched swim by thinking..."better swim hard, I'm coming after you in ten minutes", only I said it out loud and Mr. Dickface scoffed and said, "Riiight". That's ok, I'll never see this man again.
Next up. Ironman.
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